A late summer day to savour from 1985

 

By Mike Latham

There’s something magical about stealing cricket days in the late summer sunshine in September. With every passing day a reminder of the miserable winter to come, cricketing enthusiasts eke out those last few days of the season, each day one to treasure.

So, it was for me 35 years ago, as I recalled on locating some long-lost photos the other day. Derbyshire v Warwickshire in a midweek three-day county championship fixture at glorious Queen’s Park, Chesterfield, starting Wednesday 11 September 1985.

I managed to get a day off work, the forecast good and set off early from my home in Atherton. Chesterfield’s not the easiest place to visit when you live in Lancashire, though the journey then, through Stockport, Hazel Grove and the Peak District was a darn sight easier then than it must be now. I can still recall the excitement of seeing the glorious Queen’s Park ground, where I had first visited with my dad 14 years previously, Warwickshire again the opposition for a Sunday League fixture.

Derbyshire games always seemed a more attractive proposition for me than going to Old Trafford, a ground I always found cold and austere. At Derbyshire there was a warmth and friendliness, the welcome on the gate, the friendly smile and cheerful disposition of the man selling raffle tickets and copies of Frank Peach’s simply wonderful yearbook, a labour of love if ever I saw one.

As matches go, this was largely inconsequential, Derbyshire ending 13^th in the table, Warwickshire two places below them. But even 35 years on I can recall a purposefulness to the cricket, and as usual at Chesterfield a good-sized and attentive crowd.

Warwickshire captain Norman Gifford won the toss and inserted the home side- and at first his decision looked justified.

Paul Smith, a tearaway fast bowler, got stuck in, as my photos show.

He removed the Derbyshire openers, Bruce Roberts and Iain Anderson quickly and followed up with the prize wicket of the home captain, Kim Barnett, two to slip catches by Robin Dyer, 34 for 3.

Bruce Roberts b Smith

Iain Anderson c Dyer b Smith

Kim Barnett c Dyer b Smith

We all have heroes as young men. One of mine was John Morris, a simply outstanding batsman when in the mood. He’d played for England U19s, was set for a great career and though he did achieve international honours (three Tests, eight ODIs) never realised his full potential. He ended up with over 21,000 first-class runs at an average of just over 37, scored 52 first-class hundreds. He was class but should have achieved more.

But I can remember far more of his batting style and some of the innings I saw him play- including an imperious hundred one day against Yorkshire at Harrogate- than many played by players who finished with more honours and higher first-class averages.

John Morris drives Stephen Wall through the covers

John Morris hits Norman Gifford for six

Michael Holding batting with the famous crooked spire in the distance

Gladstone Small bowls to Paul Newman with the Queen’s Park pavilion in the background

Michael Holding on his way to 62

John Morris reaches his century, Warwickshire wicketkeeper Geoff Humpage leading the applause, Michael Holding the non-striker

Anyway, this was Morris’s day- confident, composed, timing the ball to perfection, standing upright and smiting beautifully timed shots through the covers, or hitting the spinners through the arc.

Andrew Brown supported him, a young left-hander making his way in the game, batting confidently to reach 74, then his highest score.

Morris had reached 92 and Derbyshire 168 for 3 when he was injured and had to retire hurt, resuming at 318 for 7, Derbyshire’s overseas professional Michael Holding then in full flow.

Morris reached his hundred, finished unbeaten on 109, Holding made 62 as Derbyshire declared on 354 for 9, Smith and Stephen Wall each taking four wickets in what became a toiling attack.

Back to work on Thursday I missed Warwickshire’s collapse, 123 all out, Holding 4-28. Following on they made a better fist of it, taking the game into a third day, eventually mustering 265, Asif Din following up his first innings 44 with a battling 89, Holding 6-90.

Left with a target of 35, Derbyshire romped to victory by ten wickets. My Wednesday in Chesterfield was a day to savour, made all the more enjoyable by recently discovering the photos I took that day. I hope you enjoy them, too.

Retirement of a Northumberland stalwart

 By Mike Latham

I read with some sadness on the website of the Northumberland & Tyneside Cricket League website (NTCL) that Brian Wilkin was stepping down from official duties with Northumberland ACO after many years of service.

Brian is a good bloke who I got to know over the past few years with his involvement as secretary of Northumberland CCC. Through him I gained an appreciation of the depth and variety of cricket in the north-east, as he outlined to me many of the grounds where he had umpired over the years, regaling some marvellous stories, and I found his enthusiasm for cricket was contagious.

People such as Brian, who devote their life to cricket as administrators and umpires are an increasingly rare breed and I wish him well in his retirement and hope he enjoys many more years of cricket-watching.

Brian Wilkin- a cricketing stalwart

The north-east is a cricketing hotbed and over the past few years I’ve tried to visit as many grounds in Northumberland as I can.

Cricket for a player, in my opinion, is about finding your level and then enjoying your game. You never know where that level will be until you push the boundaries. The NTCL enables you to do that with many opportunities for players and umpires.

In the truncated 2020 they ran eight divisions, all arranged on geographical grounds, divisions one to three played 40 overs per side instead of the usual 50; and four to six, the latter two sub-divided north and south and played over 30 overs per side.

Alnmouth & Lesbury, champions in 2019, had to settle for runners-up spot in division one behind Morpeth while the other two divisional winners of the top three divisions were Swalwell and Tynedale respectively.

Those three top sides, plus Alnmouth & Lesbury, champions in 2019 played off for the title, Swalwell (198-6) defeating Tynedale (72) in the final. Meanwhile, Blyth defeated Newcastle City Seconds by two wickets in the lower division play-off final.

The league runs from Berwick CC to the north to Allendale in the south and west, a distance of 92 miles, and hence covers a wide geographical area.

For the cricketing enthusiast there are some beautiful grounds to discover and wherever you go expect a warm welcome and a decent standard of play.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll aim to bring you a taste of a few of them.

In no particular order, here are a few that I’ve enjoyed visiting over recent years.

Alnwick CC- just off the A1 in a sports complex also including the town’s rugby union club, Alnwick CC is a relatively new ground on Weavers Way.

Bates Cottages CC- south-east of Seaton Delaval, the welfare ground is in the village of Holywell.

Morpeth CC- situated north and east of the town in the spacious grounds of Longhirst Hall, it is a former Minor Counties venue.

Ponteland CC- a vast ground, part of Ponteland Leisure Centre, north and west of Newcastle Airport.

Durham's first game at Riverside.

Posted by Tony Hutton

Regular readers of our blog will realise that both John Winn and I have contributed frequent stories on matches involving Durham County cricket, all still available on our comprehensive archive. Hopefully that will continue when county cricket returns next season. However perhaps time to involve Durham in our new format with a look back to their very first game at Riverside, Chester-le-Street.  

Although born in Yorkshire, I have always been able to claim dual nationality as my mother was born in Sunderland and my earliest years were spent very much with my two grandparents, who were both proud to be Geordies, as all Durham residents were known prior to the 1980s. It was only later that Sunderland residents became 'Mackems'. In addition the later years of my business career involved weekly trips to north east England when I enjoyed seeing the succession of Callers Pegasus celebrity cricket games at Jesmond and occasional Durham Minor Counties games.

I became a Durham member when they became a first class county in 1992 and have remained so for most of the time since. The first three years of county cricket involved following their rather nomadic existence as they travelled around club grounds. Durham University's Racecourse ground, Darlington, Stockton, Hartlepool, Gateshead Fell and Chester-le-Street's Ropery Lane all hosted county games and the local communities became involved in the exciting atmosphere of this wonderful new venture. 

Durham take the field at Riverside for the first time.

The new ground at Riverside was not ready until 1995 and I was there on the day of the first match on the 18th May. Sky Sports news covered the event and due to my son's then connection with Sky introduced myself and got interviewed on my thoughts of the big occasion. Unfortunately I was unable to replicate the local accent! Warwickshire were the visitors and batted first with Andy Moles and Nick Knight batting through until mid-afternoon before the first wicket fell.   

Durham were captained by Mike Roseberry who had returned to his native county from Middlesex. Experienced Wayne Larkins from Northants and John Morris from Derbyshire had reinforced the batting ranks and were joined by overseas player Manoj Prabhakar, an Indian Test player. Simon Brown, who had also returned home from Northants and Melvyn Betts one of the local lads were the two main bowlers.

Durham were fairly optimistic as the visitors were without their three main bowlers Alan Donald, Tim Munton and Gladstone Small who were all injured. However the optimism did not last last long, particularly after the opening partnership of 172. The weather gave the brave spectators a preview of what would become a regular feature of the ground, a chill wind throughout and rain eventually shortening the day's play. Warwickshire ended on 240-2 and the newspapers had a field day with several using the 'Moles digs in' headline for the openers 90 runs.

Still it had been a wonderful occasion, even with the ground far from finished, the open views from the pavilion block across the golf course to Lumley Castle were a great addition to the county cricket grounds of England. The enthusiasm of all concerned was there to see, none more than Don Robson very much the brains behind the whole operation.

Warwickshire built up an all out total of 424 on day two. Simon Brown, with a taste of what was in store for him, bowled tirelessly for forty one overs to take 5-123. Durham were not dismayed and thanks to John Morris with 128 and useful contributions from Wayne Larkins and young local lad Jimmy Daley managed to make 313. Simon Brown again did his stuff with 6-69 in the visitors' second innings, which was declared on 145-8.

Chasing just over 250 to win, Durham fell at the first hurdle loosing both openers cheaply. They could only bat ten men as Daley was injured and although Prabhakar showed his worth with 66 the middle and late order collapsed against the bowling of Dougie Brown, Dermot Reeve and Paul Smith. Durham all out for 145 and lost by 111 runs. Nevertheless an historic occasion and few who were there could have imagined the ups and downs of Durham's eventful history over the next twenty five years.

Lancashire take the field ahead of a title-winning season 90 years ago

 

By Mike Latham

After researching Haigh CC the other day and the role of their first professional, James Tyldesley, by chance I found this photo among my archive.

The Lancashire team takes the field before their opening county championship game against Northants at Old Trafford on Saturday, 2 May 1930.

One of James Tyldesley’s four cricketing sons was in the Lancashire side, slow bowler Dick making an important contribution to what proved to be a convincing win to kick-start a successful campaign.

Emerging from the Old Trafford pavilion led by Peter Eckersley, in his second season as county captain, are some of the biggest names in Lancashire cricket history.

Seven of the side played Test cricket for England: Charlie Hallows, Ernest Tyldesley (no relation to Dick), Jack Iddon, Len Hopwood, Eddie Paynter, George Duckworth and Dick Tyldesley.

The great Ted McDonald, then aged 39 but staring impassively at the camera, tall and erect, had played 11 Tests for Australia, his last almost a decade ago.

Frank Watson and Frank Sibbles, both fine county cricketers, made up the Lancashire XI.

The Lancashire team takes the field on the opening day of the 1930 County Championship season

The players (left to right) are: Watson, Iddon, Sibbles, PT Eckersley (captain), Hopwood, E Tyldesley, McDonald, Hallows, Duckworth, Paynter. Dick Tyldesley is not pictured.

I looked up the reports in the Manchester Guardian and found that rain and bad light curtailed play on the opening day, Northants struggling to 122 for 8. When play resumed on the Monday in much better conditions Lancashire quickly polished off the tail (Northants 152 all out, Dick Tyldesley 4-36) and then set about building a large first innings lead.

Hallows looked in prime early season form, though Watson, his opening partner struggled for fluency in an opening stand of 65. Nobby Clark, Northants’ Test bowler, bowled his left arm quicks ‘with a vehement action’ and gained pace from the pitch, contributing to a fine duel between bat and ball, bowling both Watson and Ernest Tyldesley.

Hopwood played aggressively, with skill and spirit. He was described as ‘young Hopwood’ but was aged 26. Iddon was criticised as one of the ‘stone-wall’ contingent, his innings ‘played without a smile’ but offering high value in terms of runs and patience. He batted three-and-a-half hours and just missed out on a century.

Eckersley came in at no7 to play a captain’s innings, determined to get the scoreboard ticking, mindful of the threat of rain on the final day.

Lancashire declared at their overnight 337-6 (Hallows 51, Iddon 93, Hopwood 62, Eckersley 68*) and set about trying to beat the weather.

Northants reached 135-4 at lunch, but lost their last six wickets for only 29 runs to lose by an innings and 21 runs. The Northants captain, Vallance Jupp, another former Test match cricketer, provided most resistance with an innings 48.  Left arm bowler Hopwood, flighting the ball cleverly, shared the wickets evenly with Dick Tyldesley, while Duckworth ‘agile and crowing shrilly’ effected four stumpings.

Lancashire went on to win the county championship for the second time in three years and won it again in 1934. Northants finished bottom of the County Championship in 1930.

Early impressions are often misleading. For all his fine innings Hallows’ season tailed away, and he managed 631 runs at an average of 26. Watson went on to score 1,712 runs at 43, including two centuries and 14 fifties. Ernest Tyldesley made seven centuries and compiled 1,811 runs at 54. Iddon was the other Lancashire batsman to pass one thousand runs, hitting 1,195 at 38.

Dick Tyldesley and Ted McDonald shared the bowling honours. The former took 121 wickets at 14, the latter showing that his benefit year of 1929 had not dulled his ambition, collecting 104 wickets at 20.

Hopwood had a fine all-round campaign, scoring 949 runs at 31 and taking 63 wickets at 19.

(ends)

A historic but long forgotten cricket ground near Wigan

 By Mike Latham

Walking in the grounds of Haigh Hall the other day reminded me of an excellent recent post by Alan Moore, on the Cricket Grounds of Britain Facebook group, about the site of the defunct Haigh Cricket Club ground.

Haigh is a small village north of Wigan, close to Aspull and Blackrod, Haigh Hall the former home of the Earls of Crawford and Balcarres, now owned by Wigan Council as a leisure facility.

There’s something eerie about visiting an old ground and you close your eyes you can imagine the sound of leather on willow. The footprint of the ground is still clearly visible, bordered by trees which formed the plantations of Haigh Hall. Approached up Higher Lane off the main Wigan Road from Aspull, the ground is hidden away by trees and forgotten, on the left-hand side just after some stables. The Leeds & Liverpool Canal runs to the south and west.

The site of Haigh CC in 1894

If you examine an Ordnance Survey map of the late 19th century, you’ll see many small collieries dotted around the landscape and the Earl’s family owned the Wigan Coal & Iron Company which employed hundreds of local people.

Haigh was quite a sporting centre at the time. In the 1880s they had a successful rugby team and produced Ned Bullough who went on to play for Wigan and became the club’s first rugby union international in 1892. This was three years before Wigan joined the breakaway and became a founder member of the Northern Union, the game which became known as rugby league.

Bullough was employed by the Haigh Brewery and went on to run several public houses. Neighbours Aspull also had a prominent rugby team at the time and one of their best players was Reuben Sharrock, who also played for Haigh Cricket Club.

Ned Bullough, Wigan’s first international

The cricket club’s roots go back to the mid-1800s. The exact date of formation is unknown, but they were certainly functioning in 1850, as reports of their games appear in the Preston Chronicle. Wigan CC formed in 1848 was a friendly rival.

Haigh’s ground was described as picturesque and one of the prettiest in Lancashire. They certainly enjoyed the patronage of important local people. At their AGM in 1890, for example, Alexander Lindsay, the Earl of Crawford was President and their list of patrons included Colonel Blundell, another important colliery owner and Member of Parliament for Ince, together with three other local MPs.

The old Haigh ground today

In 1886 Haigh CC appointed a club professional for the first time, whose duties also included preparing the ground. They chose wisely, recruiting James Tyldesley, a talented all rounder whose cheerful demeanour made him popular around the club.

Tyldesley went back to his old club, Westhoughton after serving Haigh well for several seasons and produced four sons, William, Dick, James and Harry who all went on to play for Lancashire, Dick in seven Test matches for England.

Haigh joined the Bolton & District Association in 1896 and two years later achieved their greatest feat. Westhoughton won the league and the runners-up were to play them for the Cross Cup. Haigh tied with Halliwell for second place and so the two clubs played-off for the right to play Westhoughton. Haigh won convincingly, 140 plays 37, and met Westhoughton at Tonge CC the following Saturday, their old professional now in the Westhoughton ranks.

It was Haigh’s finest moment, as in front of a large number of spectators they routed the champions, bowling them out for 29, Armstrong, their opening bowler taking seven wickets. Haigh knocked off the target for the loss of two wickets, Sharrock at the crease when the winning runs were hit. Haigh batted on to give the spectators some value for money and Tyldesley captured six wickets in a losing cause.

At the annual dinner later that year at Hamer’s Commercial Hotel in Bolton, all the victorious Haigh players were presented with gold medals by Lord Stanley MP.

For reasons unexplained Haigh left the Association after that season and resumed playing friendly matches, regular opponents being Leigh, Horwich, Wigan, Leyland, Formby, Prescot and St Helens Recs.

Their demise is shrouded in the mists of time, but the club appears not to have resumed playing after the first world war. In 1920 Standish CC bought two pavilions, a mower and a roller from the Haigh Club, suggesting the latter had been wound up.

Reuben Sharrock the cricketer

Reuben Sharrock played for Haigh CC from a young age and the Wigan Examiner reported: ‘when in hitting mood he was a veritable Jessop. Few men in the district could surpass him in slogging.’

After Aspull rugby club folded in 1895, he played a few games for Wigan and later became a director of the club. He was also a director of Wigan & District Co-operative Society before moving to Blackpool to run a boarding house in Bispham with his wife.

His younger brother Jimmy became one of Wigan’s finest fullbacks, playing nearly 300 games and becoming a member of the first Northern Union touring teams, to Australia and New Zealand in 1910.

Unusually I was not there

 Posted by Tony Hutton

My next blog was originally to concern my first ever first class match, which was a Test Match between England and South Africa at Headingley way back in the mists of time of 1947. However that will have to wait as during my research, on the subject of Len Hutton, I was side tracked, as so often happens, by a team picture of Yorkshire taken in 1949 quite obviously at Chesterfield. 

Several things drew my attention to this picture. For a start eight of the twelve players had played or would play for England. The back row contains two youngsters who had started their first class careers only a few weeks earlier and would both go on to greater things - Brian Close and Frank Lowson. Indeed Frank Lowson would become a business colleague and good friend of mine in later years. More of that later. One unusual participant was Frank McHugh, a very fast opening bowler, who is not looking at the camera but has perhaps been distracted by a passing female.

McHugh had come into the side because of an injury to Ron Aspinall and only played three games for Yorkshire. He later moved to Gloucestershire, where he had a successful career as an opening bowler, but his batting broke all records of a very different kind. Wikipedia reports that his career batting was consistently inept with an average of 2.63. In fact 66 of his 111 first class innings were scoreless and he was dismissed 38 times for a duck. In fact he only reached double figures four times.

So of course I was then tempted to download the full scorecard of the game at Chesterfield, despite of course not being present at the time. This proved to be of even greater interest as the game was obviously played on a typical green top wicket of the kind made so well known by Derbyshire's famous opening bowling pair of Jackson and Gladwin. Yorkshire were obviously aware of this and left out England left arm spinner Johnny Wardle from their twelve.

Yorkshire having won the toss started badly when Hutton was dismissed by the veteran Bill Copson for a duck. However Frank Lowson played the highest innings of the match in scoring 64 out of an all out total of 194 which took 101 overs. Copson and Gladwin took three wickets each and Jackson two. When Derbyshire batted they were soon 11-4 when Coxon and McHugh took two wickets each. Only Charlie Elliot, later to become a Test umpire, made any sort of score with 39 and the home side were all out for just 69. Coxon 4-21, spinner Ellis Robinson 3-12, McHugh 2-16 and Close 1-13. The 18 year old Close of course went on not only to complete the double of a thousand runs and one hundred wickets but to play for England in this his first season.

Yorkshire also struggled in their second innings and were soon 12-3. This time Hutton managed 14 and Watson top scored with 30. With the wicket showing no signs of improvement Yorkshire then declared on 79-7 leaving Derbyshire requiring just over 200 to win. Copson, Gladwin and Jackson again shared all the wickets. Derbyshire of course had no chance of reaching the target and indeed were 40-7 thanks to Alex Coxon's opening burst which brought him final figures of 6-36. After some token resistance from the tail Derbyshire were all out for 90 and Yorkshire had won by 114 runs.

Frank Lowson with the other Hutton.

To return briefly to my friendship with Frank Lowson, many years later he did play a few games for our office side in evening league cricket and had still not lost his touch, sweetly timing the ball through the covers to rebound from the boundary wall with no effort whatsoever. Even so one of my few achievements as a cricketer came when I captained a former England opener and did not require him to bat. He said 'put me in at number five or six' and promptly went to sleep on the dressing room table. However we managed to score 120-2 in our twenty overs and he was not required on that occasion.

One or two questions remain.

 posted by John Winn

With a dreary day in prospect today but sunshine forecast for tomorrow I thought I would try and provide the answers to the puzzle I set on Friday, namely to decipher the signatures in these photographs. 

Let's start with Yorkshire. Most of these are pretty clear and match up with the eleven that played against Warwickshire at Middlesbrough in 1957 when the team in batting order was 

Lowson, Close, Wilson Padgett, Watson, Sutcliffe, Illingworth, Wardle, Trueman, Binks and Platt. All except Binks and Platt are relatively easy to identify and it seems that wicketkeeper Binks for some reason did not sign. This leaves us with just two 'graphs' Ron Burnet, presumably there in his role as second team captain and AN Other, between Burnet and Padgett. It takes a giant leap of the imagination helped by a couple of gin and tonics to think that this might be Robert Kenworthy Platt. If like me you thought the surname ended in 'land' then we are no further forward for  nobody with those four letters at the end of the surname played for Yorkshire that season, either at first or second team level. 

Moving on to Warwickshire who certainly give value for money with some players having signed twice. 

(

The eleven that wore the bear with the ragged staff on their sweaters, and they probably needed them at Middlesbrough in May, was as follows ( in batting order)

Gardner, Horner, Smith, Townsend, Wolton, Spooner, Singh, Ibadullah, Bannister, Thompson and Hollies. All of these except skipper MJK Smith are recognisable and if push came to shove I would say it is not impossible that his might be the scrawl in the bottom right hand corner above the signature in red ink. In addition to the selected eleven we have Shirley Griffiths, WJ Stewart, CW Leach, Ray Weeks* and Tom Cartwright, a large squad indeed. This leaves us with the red ink in the bottom right hand corner which has me stumped. 

The match itself was 'seriously interfered' with by rain, the third day was washed out entirely, but with points on offer for first innings lead some interest was added to the game. Trueman's pace was too much for Warwickshire's batsmen on the first day when his 6 for 46 largely accounted for their dismissal for 142. Yorkshire fared little better and at one point were 111 for 6 until a stand of 58 between Illingworth and Binks gathered the two points, Illingworth finishing on 54 not out, the only fifty of the match. Only eleven overs were possible in Warwickshire's second innings. For the record Surrey were champions at the end of  the season with Yorkshire third. If asked to guess the runners up you probably wouldn't say Northants, but if you did you would be right. Warwickshire faded after a bright start under new skipper, MJK, and finished eleventh. 

* At times Wisden includes an e in Weeks'  (Weekes) but eventually came to accept that the left arm spinner could spell his own name and by the time of his obituary following his death in 2013. had settled on Weeks.